“You’ll be celibate as a monk then?” Malcolm said with a knowing grin.
“Little chance of that,” I laughed. “I’m over forty, not over ninety.”
“Poor Tom, you’ll never have the chance to get a girl in every port. You’re settling down too young,” Drew teased.
“Oh, I am? And what was it you were telling me about thinking Sophia might be the one for you?” Tom challenged. Drew took a drink and didn’t answer.
“Is that true?” I asked, “are both of the young bucks in our little group off the market?”
Drew shrugged, but his face admitted it was true. Malcolm clapped him on the shoulder, “Don’t jump in just yet. Marriage gets better with age. I’m on my third, didn’t marry her till I was nearly fifty, and it was the best decision I ever made. I chose a woman who wants the same things I want. A family, a comfortable home, a nice vacation,” Malcolm said.
They laughed, and we talked about Tom’s upcoming nuptials. He was unbothered by the teasing about the old ball and chain. Nothing had dimmed his enthusiasm for his bride. I was truly happy for him and wanted him to find that rare joy that came with having a true partner. I’ve never known it myself, but I knew enough men who had married the right woman at the right time to believe it existed for some. The rare and chosen few. I might have envied them a little, but I was a fortunate man. I had all I could have dreamed of, and to ask for more would be incredibly greedy.
But for my friends, for those dearest to me, I wished the sort of happiness a wife and family could bring. Those are not for everyone. I’d never found anyone I’d give everything up for. Not that I’d have to sacrifice anything, but I always thought that you’d have to love someone enough to be willing to give up everything for their sake. And if not, then they were just an accessory to your life, not the center of it. I regarded women too highly to keep one as a pet, as it were. Some women who lived in my house and saw me only rarely for charity functions or major social events, who had to fill her own time knowing she might go days without seeing me due to my work commitments. Plenty of women—beautiful, clever women—had assured me that they would lead such a life happy to be married to me, but I never wished such a half-hearted marriage on anyone. My first commitment was to my company, and a wife deserved better than second place in my life.
Did seeing Tom starry-eyed and besotted over his bride spark a glint of envy in me? Certainly, but no more than his youth or idealism did. There was no reason to expect him to fare better than fifty percent of marriages that end in divorce those days, but the union held such promise, and he had such hope. Was being jaded merely the wearing away of that optimism over the course of years?
In my office earlier, when Cat had brought the paperwork to me, I’d been stunned by how easily we fell into conversation. Not only conversation but banter, the sort that made Tracy and Hepburn famous, and that made me think for no reason at all of that glamorous couple’s significant age difference. Bogart and Bacall. That gorgeous human rights lawyer George Clooney married. Plenty of older men found fiery young women to marry them, but I wasn’t in the market for a wife or even for a lover. I had simply been attracted to the sharp back and forth of our conversation, the energy between us. She was feisty and sharp, full of fun. I wondered if I could call her up to my office to carry those papers back to Kim for me. Would it be a joke, or would it be too obvious that I wanted to see her again and talk that way, forgetting everything but the present effervescent moment?
My attention traveled back to Tom as he and Drew talked about the yacht—Malcolm’s yacht—where Tom’s wedding would be held. I supposed a yacht on the Adriatic Sea was picturesque and romantic. We were lucky they didn’t rent a castle in Scotland or something absurd. He had bought her a lavish wedding gift, which he was describing.
“It’s a sapphire necklace and earrings. The set was originally given to Wallis Simpson by Edward VIII before he abdicated. One of the greatest love stories of all time, and I’ll give her a piece of it to show her what she means to me,” he said.
“Beautiful. She’ll love it,” Malcolm said.
“I wish I’d thought of it first,” Drew lamented. “Sophia loves the royal family. Maybe I can find something that belonged to Princess Diana to give her for Christmas. There isn’t enough time to be sure of its provenance, though unless you go through Sotheby’s…”
“Wallis Simpson was a Nazi,” I informed them helpfully.
“You are such a buzzkill,” Drew said. “And it won’t stop me from finding a pair of earrings or something. Surely they have some availability connected to Diana now…she had tons of jewelry.”
Drew promptly pulled out his phone and started looking for royal jewelry associated with a certain doomed princess. I shook my head indulgently as our steaks arrived. I cut into the thick, juicy meat, the perfect amount of red in the center, and thought that it didn’t get any better than this. With a sigh of satisfaction, I tucked into my meal.
In the lull of conversation, Malcolm took out his phone and showed us a video of his son River splashing in his bath while Malcolm’s wife Sophia laughed and leaned in for a selfie with their adorable, chubby baby. I nodded approval and commented that he was growing up to be as handsome as his godfather—myself. I stopped eating for a moment and took a drink of water. Something wasn’t settling well with my meal perhaps. I had felt something sharp in my stomach or chest when I looked at that toddler. I’d felt it earlier when Tom was talking about his fiancée. Indigestion? If this kept up, I might have to see a doctor about a prescription antacid.
I couldn’t be nauseated by the sweetness and happiness of my friends. I wasn’t such a curmudgeon. I wished them the best and rejoiced in their happy families. So why did it give me a physical pang to watch that kid splashing water at his mother? It must have been too much steak sauce. Or bourbon too late at night. I shrugged it off.
My ex-wife and I weren’t together very long. We were married less than two years in all. She hadn’t been a bad person, and neither had I. Our faults just weren’t compatible for a peaceful coexistence. She thought I was home too little, so she spent the time I was home complaining about it. I avoided home instead of trying to work out a solution that worked for us both. We didn’t try counseling. I just paid off what the prenuptial agreement entitled her to, and now she sent me a Christmas card every year with pictures of her family on the ski slopes or on a white sand beach, happy and smiling. So it did work out well for someone in the end. Both of us really, because I built the company I had always wanted. And she built the family she wanted.
I just wondered what it would have been like if we had tried to stay together. If I had swallowed my pride and asked her to go to therapy with me. If we had talked it out and adjusted our expectations of each other, maybe it would have worked out. We might have had vacations and kids and been tanned and happy in our middle age together. I admit, when I got that damn card every year, I looked at her sons and her daughter and thought, for an instant, what life would be like if they had been mine. If I had taken the time to be a husband and a father. If I had someone to love, someone who loved me back.
That was where the ache came from. Not from steak sauce or bourbon or esophageal reflux. It was longing, and it tasted as bitter as hell.